Catalyst
by Fen2011
Summary: Jack's dark thoughts after a different outcome to endgameshowdown. JS


I have no idea where this came from. I would like to blame on outside influences but I can't, so I will just blame on my dark plot bunnies who forced me to write this.

**Catalyst**

It's strange how one man's actions can trigger a chain of events that can destroy a group of people's lives forever – but Emil Dornvald did that.

There's not a day… an hour… a second that goes by when I don't think about that one action. Where I was, what I was doing – when I found out about that catalyst that triggered a chain of events which changed my live forever. People often wonder what I was like before that catalyst triggered a chain of events from which there was no escape. I was not carefree nor was did I possess a bubbly character, but I was a hope junkie. I have very little hope now, Dornvald saw to that. He saw to that, the day he loaded those guns and drove to ambush my people.

I rub my hand over my face – finding it wet I stare at it. I kept expecting to see Danny's blood staining it – like it did that day, but now it is just wet with my tears. The feelings of relief and ecstasy I felt when I stood outside that hospital knowing that Viv was going to be alright are foreign to me now. They left me the moment that ambulance screamed into the hospital.

Flashback

_Jack leant against the hospital wall and smiled despite the rain. Viv was going to alright, it had been touch and go for a while, but she was going to just fine. He looked up at as an ambulance screamed passed and wondered what person or event was trying to destroy a person's and their loved ones' lives. He vaguely heard his coffee cup clatter to the ground as he raced over to the ambulance._

"_Danny," he called out blanching when he saw how deathly pale Danny looked. His ghostly pale skin was broken up by alarming amounts of blood and medical equipment._

"_Sorry sir but you going to have to stand back," someone told him as he felt himself being shoved back._

"_I'm his next of kin," Jack yelled not realising that didn't really matter right now. He remembered when Danny had asked if he could list him as his next of kin. Jack had asked about family and Danny had shaken his head telling him that he had none. He had of course agreed feeling that he and Danny were linked by one single event – the deaths of their mothers, which they both blamed themselves for. _

_Jack forced his way through, grabbing Danny's hand and resting a hand on his forehead before he pushed back again._

"_We're losing him," someone yelled in what felt like the distance._

_With those words, Jack felt the wall in which he kept his tightly guard emotions began to crumple. He heard a continuous beep and felt as though his heart had stopped beating as well. He saw the doctors shaking their heads._

"_Time of death-"_

"_No, he's not dead – why aren't you trying anything. He's not dead," Jack yelled in desperation. _

"_I'm sorry sir but there was just too much damage – there's nothing we could do."_

_  
Jack stepped forward finding no resistant this time. He gently pushed the hair off Danny's lifeless forehead. "I'm so sorry kiddo, I'm so sorry," Jack whispered as he blinked back tears. "What about the other agent that was with him?"_

"_I'm sorry sir but he was pronounced on the scene."_

_Jack leant forward and kissed Danny's forehead watching as his tears made tracks through the blood. "I'm sorry Danny-boy, but I swear that I will make it right to you and Martin." The strong emotion of despair and grief was soon replaced by the overwhelming need to revenge his agent's murders._

_End of flashback_

That overwhelming need was the reason he was here. It was the reason he felt as though he had been striped of everything that made him human. It was the reason that he didn't have Sam lying in his arms this Sunday morning. It was the reason he would never see his girls grow up.

His lawyer had been good. He had avoided the death penalty or life in prison. He had got six years in Rikers for his brutal murder of Emil Dornvald. When he had come face to face with Dornvald, he had lost it – pumping round after round into Dornvald's chest, even though he had raised his hands in surrender. But his sentence might as well have been the death penalty as Dornvald has ripped out his soul. He had ripped out Viv's soul; he had ripped out Sam's soul - leaving a gaping hole where the boys should have been – all for a few dollars.

Viv had visited him a few times since he had been in. But he knew that she had given her visits up, so Sam could visit as often as possible. She was his light, she was his hope, she was the reason he kept going. She was the reason that he could see light at the end of the tunnel. She was the reason he fought through the pain of the beatings that he received. He allowed himself to lose himself to her in his dreams.

He pulled his knees up his chest, wincing as his newly healed stab wound twinge. A stab wound that had got inflected and had nearly cost him his life. In his delusional state, he swore Sam was there telling him to fight and she stroking his hair. But it hadn't been real; it had just been a hallucination. He had briefly considered allowing himself to get to that state again, just so he could feel Sam's soft hands again. He sighed - five years, possible four if he was lucky until he could wake up with her in his arms, until he could feel her soft touch. It was the only thought that kept him going through these dark days.

At the beginning he had tried to persuade Sam to leave him, to find someone that would give her the world. But she had simply put her hand against the glass barrier that separated them and told him that she had found a man that had and would give her more than the world… a man that she was prepared to wait six years for.

Maybe he would learn to feel human again. Maybe his destroyed soul would feel alive again. Maybe he would be able to let the demons of the past rest. Maybe he would find a way to forgive himself for not protecting his people.

The catalyst was losing power and from the ashes a phoenix would rise, as two souls were reunited. Only then could they stop the chain of events.


End file.
